Saint Petersburg Real Estate Market Overview

In order to better understand this section, we advise that you first familiarize yourself with the section on the Architectural Development of St. Petersburg.

The housing stock of St. Petersburg has formed over the course of three centuries. This has been an uninterrupted process which is still in full swing (each year about 1 million m2 of residential property is built in the city).

The real estate in the city went through many changes over these years. From the private estates of the nobility in the 18th century to settlements of soldiers, craftsmen and servants to imperial and princely palaces, luxurious mansions of men of importance (merchants and industrialists) and to public and administrative buildings, cathedrals and churches.

The majority of the historic city center was home to rental houses differing mainly according to the social status of tenants (division of one and the same house into a frontal and courtyard part). Correspondingly, the most expensive accommodation was always located closer to the heart of the city center - the Winter Palace (the Hermitage) and the Admiralty; the least expensive regions were further from the center and closer to the industrial suburbs.

Social and historical events influenced this structure to a certain extent but in general, the city has remained much the same as it was in years past.

The Socialist Revolution of 1917 had a strong impact on both the housing stock of St. Petersburg and its tenants. The following changes took place:

1. As a result of vast repression, the majority of the privileged classes were either exterminated or exiled from Russia: noblemen, officers, landholders, the clergy, merchants, industrialists, rich doctors and lawyers, men of importance, well-paid writers, poets, artists, actors, etc. Thus, the group of people that played the most important role in the traditional city culture was massively decreased yet did not disappear completely.
2. A great number of peasants in search of jobs arrived in St. Petersburg from village that had been destroyed physically and/or economically during World War I and the Russian Civil War. Traditional city culture was quite alien to these people.
3. Property rights in all forms were abolished, including private housing, cooperatives and condominiums.
4. All palaces and mansions were nationalized by the new communist state - most of which became museums, public buildings (hospitals, schools, universities and civil registry offices), administrative buildings, hotels, various R&D institutes, etc. However, the majority of housing stock in the center of the city remained and still remains former rental houses.

   Example of artificial dividing a large apartment into facade (pink) and courtyard (blue) parts

5. The population increased sharply between 1917 and 1941 (mainly due to an influx of people from the countryside) and strongly aggravated the housing problem in Petersburg. Another component of this problem was a special government program for the relocation of workers from the barracks and tenements of the industrial districts. In order to solve this problem, the so-called "compaction method" was employed. Huge flats in expensive rental houses were transformed into communal apartments (separate rooms were given to different families which, together with their neighbours, had to communally use kitchens, bathrooms, etc. - have you ever seen the film Doctor Zhivago???); or one large apartment was artificially divided into several small apartments. In this way, a great number of communal flats came into being, typically with specific layouts. One half stretched along the central or main wall of the building with windows facing the street and with use of a front entrance while the other half consisted of apartments with windows facing onto the yard and a back (black) stairwell entrance (P022 red - street entrance part of an original apartment, blue - courtyard entrance). Some flats were divided into 3 or more separate apartments: in this case additional entrances were built.
6. Houses which had previously had autonomous hot water heating systems (or in some cases - autonomous power stations) were connected to the central heating system. This became the basis for the present system in which houses are heated centrally from several power and boiler stations located at various points throughout the city.